


Seventh Sweep

by chucklingChemist



Series: Alternian Snapshots [12]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Autumn, Birthdays, Gen, Hemospectrum, M/M, Mirthful Messiah Headcanons, POV Second Person, Rites of Maturation, Seventh Sweep Ordeals, Spring, Summer, Winter, discussions of blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:20:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23895235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chucklingChemist/pseuds/chucklingChemist
Summary: It's your seventh sweep. One of the most important times for any troll, on par with escaping the brooding caverns. A day many trolls await, be it eagerly or anxiously. What will you do?Four trolls experiencing their own iterations of the Rites of Maturation, all at different seasons during the sweep.
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character, Original Troll Character(s)/Original Troll Character(s) (Homestuck)
Series: Alternian Snapshots [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1260209
Kudos: 1





	1. Seventh Spring

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this as a quick series of oneshots after Hiveswap (indicating the ordeals/rites of maturation occur at the 7th sweep) but before the explanation/retcon (since, imo with V giving the explanation only after a very sexualized Friendsim route it felt more retcon than explanation) that they don't happen at the same time. And I like the idea they're at the same time more than separate, as I interpreted it as a callback to how we make kids in high school know exactly what they want to do with their life by 15. 
> 
> So yeah, with all 4 of those I wrote them with that idea in mind. Hopefully it's still enjoyable!

It’s your seventh sweep. The brisk dusk air cuts through your clothes without remorse, even as you’re wrapped up in a borrowed overcoat. Patches of dirty snow, unable to melt completely, litter the forest floor underneath tall trees alongside the remnants of dead leaves and sticks. Frost patches up where the snow can’t. You can see it as you look behind you, see the tracks your boots leave with every step. Only the barest hint of anything new growing underneath it all can be seen, but when you look down it’s still visible. Hints of greens and yellows in between whites, grays and browns. The equinox had only been a few days ago, yet tonight you could barely tell.

You stop in a familiar spot in the forest. Your eyes dart up around the treetops, unable to stop the grin on your face. The arrows, even after all this time, stuck fast in the trunk. Some others, arrows that missed the trees or broke in the wind, snap under your boots. You could have easily climbed the trees and grabbed the arrows, maybe save them for later, but you wanted the memento of your steady improvement over time. Plus, the bright blue adds a nice splash of color where there otherwise isn’t one.

It reminds you when you were young. Small. Angry. Scared of the world and your future. You didn’t know what you wanted to do with your life after this point. Your skills at five sweeps were no good for achieving past the regular brownblooded occupations. You would be stuck as a permanent servant or in the back of some trade ship performing menial stock work. And as much as you wanted to do better, how could you when you lacked the means? 

Two sweeps ago, the same blueblood that stands before you now, started you on your path. She showed you how to arch, how to defend yourself with no more than a knife, how to hold yourself in such a way higherbloods decide you’re not an easy enough target to be worth the energy. Sure, you never developed a psychic power, but with Aracae’s help you could stick an arrow straight through someone’s eye. Meanwhile, Coraxe stimulated an interest in history and archeology you didn’t know you had. You ran off to start exploring the world, only to come back a perigee later, not just battered and bruised; but invigorated. You body, mind and soul honed together. 

Also, you notice as you and Aracae stand at about the same height, you got taller. 

She nods. “It’s your seventh sweep,” she says. “A big sweep. Most trolls get taken by drones from their hive to perform their Ordeals.”

You smirk. You stand easily hundreds of miles - if not thousands - away from her actual little treehouse hive. Not a single piece of technology you own hides tracking chips to let drones force you away to a future you decided for you. 

“But not me.”

Aracae’s face brightens. “No. Not you.” She slides the quiver off her back, specially made to arrows without them falling out, and hands it to you. It’s almost all black, save for a few brown lines outlining the top and bottom, and your symbol inscribed along the bottom line. She made it for you. A Wiggling Day gift. You take it slowly, letting your hands wander all over it. “You are dead to the Empire. Your life is your own. Do with it as you wish.”

You raise your eyebrows curiously. “Nothing stupid, I take it?”

“No, you can be stupid. It’s a learning opportunity. But keep the stupid within reason.” She chuckles. “Are you planning on doing stupid things?”

Your face falls. You want to do something great. You want to rise above your caste, above your lack of psionic, above what it means to be a rust among scores of trolls supposedly better than you. But you aren’t sure _how_. Where do you even start with such a lofty goal? But then you remember the strange, abandoned stone buildings carved into natural mountain caves with unfamiliar insignias that glow in the moonlight. You remember the calming feeling you felt inside them, and your silent promise to return and discover their secrets. You didn’t have time before. But now you might.

But that’s a lot to explain when you want to keep it short and sweet. Instead, you say, “I want to travel.”

“A noble enterprise. One that many trolls in any position will never do outside of space travel. Though whether that’s by force or by choice...it’s hard to say.” She gives another nod. “If you ever falter, please understand I would be honored to take you in as a hunter.”

You hadn’t considered that. You knew Aracae’s hunters existed, even talked to a few of them, but you never thought you’d be welcome. It was Coraxe who found you all those sweeps ago, after all. Not Aracae. Aracae helping you could have to do with a thousand other things that didn’t have to do with you, and you simply didn’t want to push the question.

Then again, if you stay here, your dreams of seeing the rest of Alternia may never be achieved. You shake your head. “I need to forge my own path,” you say. “Figure out who I am.”

“I understand,” she says. She smiles, but it feels more bittersweet than before. Brown tears prick your eyes and you have to blink them away. “If you ever need a home, we’re always here. You are always welcome.”

“Oh uh, thanks,” you say as you finally sling the quiver over your shoulder. It’s hard to think of something emotional to say in the moment. Not something that feels genuine, at any rate. Your matesprit, Iahunt, is better for that. You’re the one who gets stuff done. “I’ll keep it my thinkpan.”

Aracae pulls you in for a tight hug, which you reciprocate immediately. She’s helped you so much, yet asked for so little in return. An adult troll, but also a teacher. The thought chokes you up, and you have to swallow down the lump in your throat. Hopefully you won’t have to talk.

When you two separate, you can see the glassiness in her eyes. There’s no tears, not yet, but there will be soon. You can feel it. She holds you lightly by the shoulders and gives a warm squeeze. “Good luck out there Valeba,” she says, voice cracking. “Good night, and good luck.”


	2. Seventh Summer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The heat is sweltering. The insects are persistent and obnoxious. The humidity is overwhelming. 
> 
> Icasui didn't wish for much, but she did wish for literally any other time of sweep for her wiggling day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to wait to post this until either someone else actually put something in the Original Troll Character tag but I'm about to get Persona 5 and I don't want to completely forget to post. Originally posted in late 2018, so we're getting closer to stuff I've made present day for fantrolls (with a few exceptions being Smoke and Mirrors and The Feeling of Magic, which I wrote and subsequently posted).

It’s your seventh sweep. The muggy air fills your lungs and sticks to your skin so much it wouldn’t matter what clothes you’re wearing. The quick dry shirt you’re wearing now feels just as restrictive as any sort of heavy sweatshirt as it clings to you like a second skin. You wished your hatching could have been some other night, some other month, some other perigee. But no. You had to escape the brooding caverns in the, historically, hottest perigee and then live along a coastline with brutal winters and sweltering summers. Were it any other sweep, maybe the heat wouldn’t get to you. You could admire the blooming, multicolored flora that followed the cobblestone streets as you walk out of Sandyhorn and into the looming black building off in the distance. Or better yet, you could be lying in the grass, relaxing after a long day of practice and training. But such was not a luxury of tonight. For tonight you had to take care of your Ordeals.

You are an oliveblood. Your standing in the Empire, ignoring your multitude of other factors, is okay. You lacked the obligatory restrictions placed upon rusts and yellows due to their psionics as well as the social restrictions placed upon highbloods (and jades) to conform to the standards placed upon them. With the sense of theoretical freedom, for many also came indecision. Sure, olives couldn’t be a legislacerators, laughassassins or inquistorturers - castes that tended to go to a couple castes only - but something like a cavalreaper, garrotician or threschecutioner all were perfectly within your grasp. And those are just looking at options involving potential combat. An assortment of positions always need filling on and off planet, not all of them requiring any sort of physical prowess. The world always needs farmers and ranchers.

Despite all this, you had to have only been three sweeps by the time you knew you were going to join the Alternian fleet for the eliminatry. There’s no glory in the position, but you like to think yourself as practical. Passing the ordeals for the eliminatry wouldn’t be easy - at least you had assumed - and it doesn’t leave too much in the way for upward momentum, but you don’t need glory. Sure, you and Nivell participated in Duel Strifers, but it was never for glory for either of you. Nivell needed the money. You needed the practice. You and Nivell, despite your current friendship, would have to separate. She would, ideally, become a translator while you would fight for the Heiress (whichever one ended up winning), for the Empress (whoever sat on the throne), and for Her Empire. That was all the glory you would need.

That had been the plan. Then you met her. The bastard of an Heiress.

She was counter to everything you stood for. Her loyalty to the Empire only exists by virtue of representing the Empire. Her loyalty to the caste system and what it represents is skin deep. She holds no desire for claiming the throne, no desire for conquest or overpowering other seadwellers. In fact, her only goals in life seemed to be oriented to whatever caused the most trouble, the most ruckus, the most _fun_. And - as much as you hated to say it - it was _infectious_. Not just with you, but with the city of Sandyhorn itself. With your fast friendship, you found yourself and your Duel Strifers partner wrapped up in a fantasy FLARP game with a couple other trolls that she officially headed. If by headed, you meant “constantly going to you for help”. You helped ground her more ridiculous decisions, and she encouraged you into situations you couldn’t imagine engaging in otherwise. 

You hesitate to say your friendship caused any sort of shift in your views. You’re the same troll you’ve always been, and will always be. She just managed to cause a brief hiccup; one you’ve since fixed. Just like any good servant to the Empire should do.

You stop in front of the building for the Ordeals. In your whole life, you’ve never seen such an unremarkable building. There’s no windows, gray slabs for doors that you mistake initially for the gray slabs for walls, and sits just tall enough the tops of the few drones in front of the door line up perfectly. You might even be able to shield surf from them straight onto the rooftop, if you had the nerve.

The drone on the left extends an arm out as your records are pulled up, stopping you. You can’t help but notice these drones look different than the ones the Heiress has taught you to fight: their hides look less armored and the natural weapons and lasers appear absent. Just beady eyes affixed to black bodies.

You stand there as it pulls up your records to check your status. Your hive still stands intact, your lusus is still alive, your criminal standing is unremarkable. All reasons to believably not cull you on site. The drone agrees. It turns around the digital copy of your status and points down at the bottom two lines for you to fill out. The first line was the desired position. Then, for those like Nivell who aspired so much more beyond their caste, a second line for a fallback position if they feel it’s necessary. You aren’t sure if it’s always been like that, or if it’s something the current Empress (Her Imperious Beguiler, First of Her Name) insists on to prevent cullings of perfectly good rust servants, now that their delusions of grandeur disappeared. Still, you fill out both lines. You doubt with your path in life you’ll fail, but a fallback is never a bad option.

The drone looks at your answer blankly and nods. It presses a button and the gray slabs swing open to reveal an equally dreary, featureless gray room that only led to other rooms. Another drone, identical to the ones outside the building, meets you and leads you down the hallway and into another room. It’s the first room so far with another troll instead of a drone: an indigoblood sitting behind a pink desk, tall with equally tall pointed horns and wearing a jumpsuit. Their face and features are completely smooth. An adult troll who has never seen a day of combat in their lives.

“Icasui Zakees,” they say, expression more interested in reading from the tablet than actually looking up at you. Their voice is smooth, as smooth as their face.

You nod, face blank. “Yes, that’s me.”

“You’ve got quite the illustrious Duel Strifers history. Especially for an green. Seems strange a grub like you aims so low. You have the makings of being an esteemed fleet officer off-planet.” They finally look up at you, dark blue eyes boring into yours. “Something I should know about?”

“Of course not. I remain loyal to the Heiress and the Empire. I simply desire to remain on-planet.”

“Very well.” They press a few more buttons on the tablet. A door behind the desk, one you didn’t even see before, suddenly lights up in neon pinks and greens. “Well, I have no doubt you could succeed in your fallback. So let’s start up your test for…” they pause, grimacing, “the _mailroom_.”

You nod again. The disdain in their voice was evident, but your expectation gives you the strength to ignore it. Most trolls adhere to the idea that going off-planet is the superior option. You can explore other worlds, step outside your comfort zone, experience the unknown. And maybe that was true. Maybe staying within zones of strong Empire control and traditional Alternian culture let trolls experience the unknown.

But you don’t care about that. After all, you’re still loyal to the betterment of the Empire. The betterment of the Empire just involved you staying on-planet, helping the bastard of an Heiress. Whether she wants to admit it or not, Mayola’s not a bad fit. She’s not only managed to whip together a small FLARP group, but earn the respect of a large city filled with jaded landdwellers. But she won’t even acknowledge her competence. She needs help. And you’re probably the only one she’ll listen to about it.

So you stay on planet, working in a mailroom to ensure the rightful Heiress has the help she deserves. Just like any good servant of the Empire.


	3. Seventh Fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was actually originally written for [https://fantrollszine.tumblr.com/](url), back before I was certain if I was going to get in or not. Basically, an idea that I had already formed but it wasn't necessarily going to take the shape it did and feature the character it did until I did end up getting in, at which point I wanted to use Pallia for sure since she was one of my first fantrolls. Also to use Vodnik, who is of course not mine but ActualSnowLeopard's. 
> 
> Anyway, enjoy!
> 
> Additional note, as of 7.29.20, this one is officially noncanon. Actualsnowleopard's characters have been reformatted into his original universe, and while some of his trolls were gifted to me (such as Sekier, who appears in the next chapter), and Pereon's going to get reskinned because I can't give up troll!GLaDOS, Vodnik is both understandably his baby and not as easily reskinned with everything else that would be going with him. I haven't quite decided what I'm going to do fully - making a reskin like with Pereon doesn't feel right since there's elements he's connected to that would be getting wiped in the greater universe (albeit mostly elements I was unconnected to, but still elements necessary to Vodnik's character), and making a new character for this position doesn't vibe right with me. Most likely this role would be filled by Aracae or Solaan, but at that point it probably wouldn't happen with this exchange. 
> 
> I'd remove it since it's noncanon, or reformat it to reflect such, but this was submitted to a zine under this title and that feel that's disingenuous. So it's still here. It still reflects just how pissed Pallia is at Careen, sweeps later. Probably still has a pre-Dontoc rich patron in the form of Aracae now. But anything explicitly reflecting Vodnik now? Not canon.

It’s your seventh sweep. Moonlight seeps from your window and onto your mattress pad, illuminating your respiteblock and casting dark shadows of the bright red, fragrant flowers sitting on the window sill. An early present from your pirate patron, a thank you for helping him. You’re not sure how he found out your wiggling day, nor are you especially sure you want to know how, but the thought he actually decided to celebrate it is nice. It isn’t common you meet trolls so eager to celebrate a holiday like yourself or Sekier.

You groan as you roll out of your mattress pad, mindful of the tall horns affixed to your head. Normally, you’d celebrate your wiggling day. And of all days, the day of your seventh sweep should be a big one. The day you can get off this godforsaken planet to hopefully get paid to research without the fear that a subjuggalator arbitrarily deciding your research was heretical. 

But _you_ made the mistake of pissing off the Heiress. And while she didn’t cull you on the spot, you’d rather be dead than stuck here to eventually starve, as melodramatic as that sounds. 

_Look on the bright side. You don’t have to be anywhere tonight_.

It’s not exactly a comfort, but it keeps the rage at the whole situation from boiling over well enough you stumble over to your clothes chest and mirror to your halfmoon glasses.

You blink harshly as your glasses slide up your nose as you adjust to the sudden clarity, and despite yourself you can’t help but glance in the mirror. If you don't have anywhere to be today, you may as well take advantage of an opportunity to use yourself as a test subject and determine if you were adhering to the usual growth patterns of trolls. They always told you - and still do, if you think about it - how the ordeals work _because_ they are the last step a troll takes towards maturation. Everything else - emotionally, mentally and physically - you should be the physically mature adult, ready to take on the stars.

Yet, as you stared in the mirror, you look no different. Your oculars are a splotchy teal around the pupil, but they’ve looked like that for weeks. Your horns still disproportionately tall to your skinny frame and small body. And while you’ve grown, even Aisral’s taller than you. There’s a semblance of a bust - at least if your last fitting with Aisral indicated anything - but you certainly can’t see it now. Your gray skin is no darker. And feeling different? You felt the same way you did yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that. Unless being an adult is _supposed_ to feel identical to being a kid, even though you’ve been led it’s a completely different experience. Despite the day, you were just...you. Judgmental, inquisitive, and more stubborn than trolls preferred but still _you_.

Maybe you were an anomaly? Some runt of the grub litter who got lucky and escaped before the jades or drones could nab you? You were destined to look and feel like you did at 6.9 sweeps for the rest of your life?

But then again, you don’t remember Mayola going through any sudden drastic change. She didn’t just walk in one day with pink eyes and a mature outlook on life to both literally and metaphorically hold over you with her sudden height. She was just...Mayola. Brash, impulsive, energetic...Mayola. You don’t remember any sort of dramatic change between the 6th and 7th sweep with her.

The longer you think, the more you realize just how, within your small circle of acquaintances, you don’t remember _any_ drastic changes. No sudden growth. No darker skin. No more amount of wisdom and experience than they ever had any other day in their life on Alternia. (Well, maybe Glacin experienced drastic change, but with every inch of his body covered, you weren’t going to ever know). 

_We’ve been lied to_.

A sigh, far more irritated than you anticipate, leaves your throat. It’s not the nice answer, but as you ponder how horribly wrong everything they’ve said is, it’s the only answer you can come to. Hell, it hasn’t even been the _first_ time you’ve come to that answer. Every time you perform a reportedly popular experiment that “confirmed” long-time held suspicions, you always find the experiment wildly inaccurate at best and actively biased and malicious at worst. You simply don’t like how it managed to stain the already horribly tarnished reputation of the Empire, worsening an already low opinion each time you came to such a conclusion. 

You should study this. If not with yourself, you still have a couple more friends who haven’t turned seven yet. Maybe study them? But the study itself may be biased, if you work only with people you know. As your thoughts race, you scramble over to your cluttered desk to grab at your teal notebook, flipping open to a random page to jot them down before they scatter away at your newest idea: all the possible forms of study, the questions to ask, the castes available for investigation, who you’ll need to ask for help, how much money it could cost, the most effective way to obtain participants, the pros and cons of just using corpses again--

 _Creak_.

Your mental train crashes right there in mid sentence and you scowl for a brief second. It’s easy to forget how loud your door gets when you’re focusing on better things. You give a quick turn on your bare heel towards the sound and find a distinctly familiar looking purpleblood with long hair that partially obscures the horns that curl around his ears and even longer black coat, standing awkwardly in your doorway. Your vision does a quick once-over to ensure he doesn’t look particularly injured - this specific purpleblood has that problem.

“Pallia,” he starts pleasantly, “happy wiggling day.”

“Not much of a wiggling day if I can’t actually _do_ anything about it,” you mutter darkly. “But thanks anyway.”

He grins. “Ah yes, I heard about your little run-in with the Heiress.” You open your mouth to retort, but he’s already continuing. “Don’t worry, it’s not spread in the cove. Much.”

You cross your arms. Memories of what Careen did come rushing back, and the familiar pain stings your gut. “You say that like it’s supposed to be comforting.”

“It is.” He snatches something out of his pocket and tosses it, letting it fall on the floor near your feet. You pick it up and run it between your fingers. It’s just a wooden coin, engraved with some odd symbol that looks vaguely like a neuron on one side and what looks like a crescent moon on the other. “It’s spread just enough that convincing the council to let you be the new lawkeeper was easy.”

Lawkeeper. Just like every other teal. You grimace, pushing the anger down. “Uh...thanks Vodnik. But I’m not sure you want _me_ to be some kind of keeper of something that important.”

“Your display of telling the Heiress to fuck off indicates you’re exactly the troll we need,” he says, voice unusually serious for once in his life. “We need someone who can stick to their ideas and keep the murder hobos away from the port while bringing some semblance of order to a bunch of anarchists. Not some wishy-washy legislacerator who bends the knee at the nearest seadweller.”

“You’re forcing me to skimp my research,” you point out.

“We’re _pirates_ ,” Vodnik drawls. “We’re not going to force you to do dick if you’re helping us.”

“I _have_ been helping you. It’s only pirates that come here, you know. Pirates and anyone Mayola knows.”

“Help us more frequently then.” He shrugs and starts to pace the length of your respiteblock, what little there is to truly pace. “Just once a perigee and when we have emergencies. And of course, you’ll get paid. It’s just another cove job. Think of it as... funding your research?”

You nod, letting the coin pass between your slim fingers. It’s not what you want, but at the same time, you don’t _really_ want to research for the Empress any more than you want to do law work. You just hoped for the opportunity to go off planet. But now, you could continue your research - away from the Empress, or her bitch of an Heiress. You just might have to occasionally dip away for “official” business. 

Eventually, you’re not sure how long you stand there, you look up to him with a smirk. “It’s a deal,” you say.

Your name is Pallia Alkali. It’s your seventh sweep. And despite Careen’s best intentions, you’re still here to spite the very lying, sack of shit Empire she represents.


	4. Seventh Winter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here it is. The one written relatively recently. As in....about whenever I posted the first chapter up on AO3. Start of the month, I think? Days are hard. 
> 
> Sekier was once owned by actualsnowleopard and is now mine. I now own troll!Kiba and will make him kiss troll!Shino. (Ignore it was made before I watched Naruto) h3h3h3h3

It’s your seventh sweep. Wind howls and moans outside your window. It promises the usual bitter colds expected of upper arctic Alternian winter weather: freezing cold temperatures and gusty with bonus hours of moonlight thanks to a premature sunset. Cold cuts through everything, even the thick, insulated walls of your hive. Well enough you have an excuse to cover up head to toe in black robes. Snow covers up everything in sight. If it’s not covered in snow, such as the rare tree or bush escaping through the permafrost, ice coats it in a transparent sheen that glints any light right back into the viewer’s eyes. 

Just like every season. The downside of living so far up north, you’ve come to learn over the sweeps. The weather might be consistent, but it lacks any level of variety to indicate the passage of time. It barely feels like this is your seventh sweep. This isn’t a major milestone of aging. It’s just another winter night in the arctic.

However, that doesn’t mean you don’t register the night as a major milestone. Quite the contrary, in fact. When you finally escaped the horrors gifted purplebloods went through in the Carnival, you had no idea what night it was the first you felt safe and secure. The first night you realized no one -- not subjuggalators, nor laughassassins, nor drones -- would come for you was the first wiggling day you spent at your hive in who knows how many sweeps. From that point on, the quiet testament of another sweep of life also involved a testament to your freedom. Freedom from the Carnival. From their alcoholic Faygo ingestions, their creepy group face painting sessions, their indoctrination and senseless slaughter of heretics. 

Freedom from the destiny of becoming the same deranged paranoiac as your brute of an ancestor.

You make your way through the various halls and rooms of your hive toward the kitchen. Rooms the carpenter drones and other purplebloods probably wanted to turn into rooms of reverence for their Messiahs. Now, they only stand as testaments and shrines to his true dedication. A hall for venomous creatures thriving under their heat lamps, a hall for any parasites you manage to keep alive, vials of dangerous bacteria and viruses all safely bottled away from the outside world. The real dangers to Alternia. Not some witch wreaking havoc on a pseudo-oppressed class to give them an excuse to hunt down lowbloods too occultish for their taste. 

You chuckle darkly to yourself. The story made no sense, of course. None of them did. The smarter of your kind state it’s metaphorical, a representation of what the chucklevoodoos do to you if managed improperly, but you didn’t need some easily misinterpreted metaphor to tell you what you already know. 

The rest of the walk to the kitchen is blissful, yet empty. Aside from your various live pets, you own little in the way of tasteful decor. Yes, you have the same furniture any other troll does: television, couches, tables, microscopes, mini-refrigerators filled with petri plates and the rare lamp for troll use, but they brought no uniqueness in their appearance alone. As far as anything else, like paintings or photographs, you simply did not yet have the time to properly fill your hive and make it look liveable again. The best you offered were paltry strings of green garland Sekier hung down the hallway walls during 12th Perigee you simply hadn’t bothered to take down. 

After all, you’ve only been back for a couple sweeps at most. It’s taken you that time to really set up your hive as a home base of operations for study. There was no time to acquire prints during such a time.

“Hiya Glacin!”

The voice rudely pulls you away from your thoughts, forcing you to look up to see your neighbor, Sekier, standing at the far counter to your kitchen. You hadn’t even noticed him until now. Then again, Sekier’s normally less subtle with his entrances. Any time he doesn’t barge through the door or crash through a window, he’s impossible to notice.

His six-and-a-few sweeps weren’t as kind to him as they were you. Sekier, even with his unusual gait for a tealblood, still stood several inches shorter, with far less body fat than your own stocky frame to keep him warm. His long and untamed hair mostly hid his otherwise tall horns as they jutted out to the left.

At least he finally learned to cover up. Fur ponchos are better than nothing. Any more sweeps of the troll showing up shirtless in subzero weather might have actually given you anxiety.

Sekier turns away for just a second, and when he turns back around, there’s a purple cake with _Happy Escape Day!_ written on top in white frosting. 

You quirk a curious eyebrow -- not that he can see it, with your beak mask completely covering your face -- as your head bounces from the cake back up to him. “Escape day?” you ask flatly.

“It’s a joke!” Sekier shoves the cake into your arms and shuffles over to the fridge. “Because you escaped the caverns today, just like how we celebrate you escaping the Carnival! _And_ by escaping those you escaped your ordeals!”

“You never fail to impress, Sekier.” A short amused laugh escapes your throat. How could you ever doubt him? The boy looks for excuses to celebrate like a mosquito looking for its next blood meal. “Did you get the champagne?” 

“ _Did I get the champagne?_ ” He hits the door with his hip, slamming it shut. In Sekier’s hands is one large green bottle marked off with a date two sweeps prior. He sets the bottle down on the counter top with a self-assured grin. “Do I look like the kinda troll who would just forget the most important part of an Escape Day celebration?”

You shake your head while you grab a couple narrow glasses for the champagne. You held no desire to open up the bottle _quite_ yet. Not while it was painfully obvious Sekier hadn’t been here long. “Truthfully, I’m surprised my whole hive isn’t decorated floor to ceiling with decorations. This is rather tame.”

“Yeah well…” Sekier trails off with an unusually shy laugh for someone like him. “It’s not my celebration, ya know? And I didn’t want you to feel uncomfortable because I...oh I dunno. Made it look like a clown thing or something.”

You hum softly, quiet enough there’s no way Sekier could catch it through the mask. Fingers drum on the table in contemplation. The aesthetic of the Carnival wasn’t necessarily the easiest to imitate. The aesthetic of the compound you spent the earlier sweeps of your developmental life as a troll more so. It’s all a horrific mishmash of colors -- blood, really, but you remember the plastic smell of your paint before the blood -- painted in crude representations of the horrific clowns they worshiped against steel gray walls. Music, songs of the messiahs, blast up and down the corridors any time you try to study the doctrine. Then there were the statues. Corpses of lowbloods dolled up to look like the various heretical figures in the Mirthful Doctrine and held up like statues of condemnation, hung from ropes with knives in their belly, the stench of death in the air as browns dripped onto floor into a rusty pile --

You swallow thickly and shake your head, forcing the thoughts back down. Unless Sekier brought along his newest attempt in restorative necrobiology, which you frankly doubt, you’ll be fine.

“‘ _Clown things_ ’,” you say slowly, the words still forming in your brain, “are insular enough you could never begin to achieve such. It would require sweeps of research.”

“Oh thank _God_.” Sekier’s whole body slouches over the table so quickly and violently in relief that, for the briefest second you’re afraid he’s going to keel over. “So I can start getting you some real decorations now?”

You tilt your head toward the direction of the mostly barren walls in the living room. Decor would be nice. It was, as much as you loath to admit it, part of the reason the garland remained up so long after the fact. Empty walls are better than bloody stains, but the emptiness that settles when your lusus and Sekier left was starting to get to you.

“I think it’s time for that, yes.” You remove the white gloves covering your hands and place them gently on the table next to the champagne. “Not tonight, but we can set a date for later in the week.”

You turn your head again to catch Sekier beaming. For a brief second, you almost shove your mask off to show you match his infectious grin.

Almost.

Instead, you take the champagne. The bottle is cold against your large fingers, making the thin twisted metal all the harder to grab and untwist. You have many skills. Fine dexterity at your size is not necessarily one of them.

“Hey if you’re struggling--”

You hold your free hand up in protest. “I got it,” you say coolly. 

Sekier shrugs, but otherwise watches in silence. It takes several more seconds, but soon enough the protective metal around the pressurized cap slides onto the ground, dropping with a soft _ting!_ As soon as you do, you turn around so the living room is now in front of you. You made this mistake once, when the two of you were already good and drunk. Nothing sobers anyone up like cork ending up ricocheting off your head.

This time, thankfully, you’re both sober, so the cap is far less of an issue. With minimal effort, it shoots off into the living room with an echoing _pop,_ leaving the champagne to fizz over the bottle and onto the floor. Sekier claps from behind you, making you smirk underneath the mask.

“Would you like the first sip?” you tease.

He claps your shoulder. Bulky frame and layers of fabric or not, there’s a pleasant sting underneath it all. “Nah. It’s not _my_ Escape Day, is it?”

“Fair enough.” 

Now that the champagne finally decides to calm itself, you pour two glasses halfway full. One for yourself, and another for Sekier. The bottle, halfway full, sits between the two. Sekier takes his glass first, though doesn’t take a single sip ( _so much for it not being his day_ , you think wryly, though you don’t believe it yourself, _won’t even let me have the first glass_ ).

You watch for a few moments, a part of you curious how long he might take before he gives up and takes the first drink. He doesn’t. He stands there, rocking back and forth on his heels eagerly. Waiting.

Meanwhile, your free hand fiddles with your mask. Much as you preferred keeping it on, you couldn’t keep it on to drink. They hadn’t yet invented a complicated straw mechanism through the beak.

“Hey, you gonna start or what?”

Sekier’s voice jerks you out of your thoughts again. You abruptly pull the mask over your head (horns aren’t much of a concern when they’re shaved down to barely visible points like you do) and let it drop to the floor. It hurts, but the night air, albeit indoors, on your face feels good. It has to be the first time in a sweep you went any period of time without it outside of sleep.

You raise your glass to the air. “To a successful sweep! No drones. No ordeals. And best of all, _no clowns_.”

Sekier laughs and guzzles the champagne down in a single gulp. The over-dramatic face he makes -- tongue sticking out and eyes squeezed shut -- is downright comical and you force your gaze to the kitchen window before you end up laughing at your neighbor and compatriot. 

The outside scene doesn’t help. While snow falls on the ice, your over-sized walrus flops outside like it’s the first snow of the sweep and not the twenty-seventh. Sekier’s lusus, that godforsaken Saint Bernard, rolls around next to the walrus, barking all the while. The site alone makes you crack a smile that doesn’t go away, even with a quick sip of champagne.

“I think I speak for both of us when I say, may the next sweep only be less intrusive and more rewarding for the both of us!”

**Author's Note:**

> The first two chapters for this were posted on my [Tumblr](https://chuckling-chemist.tumblr.com/) which well, I don't really post fic exclusively there anymore but I do talk about my OCs. I've also got a [Twitter](https://twitter.com/stormscourge) where I spout my opinions. And a [Pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.social/chucklingchemist%22), if you nabbed one of those as well.


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